A woman recently wrote to me asking how she might do some of the things I've done, how did I do them.
We are all different and we all have to find a way that's individual to us, but I explained my own processes as their are many people out there with a range of disabilities who see the product of creativity but can't envision the processes behind or that lead up to these things.
The first steps are getting an environment you love being in, sensorily, socially, cognitively, emotionally, physically.
It's hard to create with a hundred gawking eyes and others perched and ready to take over or control your creativity by guiding you in THEIR way when it may or may not fit your structures, when you need privacy and time and space to chill out with your own stuff BEFORE dealing with or even wanting anyone else's reactions to it (and you may never want that, you may only ever 'put up with their reactions' because your creativity may not be about them, its about your relationship to life).
The next is getting the 'media' for your creativity, a keyboard, typewriter, paper, clay, sand, paint, leaves, bark, tin cans... whatever... and don't expect to always know what you want... I'm a person who has to directly experience things in order to trigger urges... I can't do this much at all from words suggested to me, I need to see a range of things, be able to physically touch them and grab them, to express a physical connection to them in order to hold the concept and make them real,... then I can choose. So the environment has to allow this because if the environment expects that everyone starts with an IDEA then people like me would sit like a lump. I start with an EXPERIENCE and from that I get an URGE and from that urge I get a PRODUCT and from that product I get an UNDERSTANDING and from that understanding, maybe, sometimes, I grasp the IDEA THAT I PROBABLY HAD HAD (of which I was unaware until it was already expressed)!
So if we think of this discussion like a house, those are the foundations, without which the house won't get built or won't stay up on its own.
To write a book you have a great passion and begin to let it out.
Many people make a structure... a book is 250 pages, double spaced.... a chapter is around 10 pages so that's 25 chapter headings/mini subjects.
You label these in a list ie:
etc, with mini topic headings, then you write each as a small essay.
Always be honest, face your demons, make no apologies, dare and 'be'. I think those are good ingredients for a book.
To write film you would do it best with software called Final Draft 7... it gives you all the film structure and you write in the descriptions and dialogue.
A film is about 120 pages long which is about 70 book pages... so its quicker, more concise, so if you waffle and rant or have trouble sequencing then writing it as film first and expanding it into book second works best.
Art? I make a splodge of two colors on a page with no structured form or picture then use it to print onto a large canvas, then stand back and FIND a picture in the mess and then draw that out. Other times I'll play with texture and then stand back and find a picture within the textures and then work to bring it into being. So again, I usually don't start with an idea.
Music, I play and when something I improvise moves me, I put on a mini taperecorder and CAPTURE it, then scribble it out onto paper if I can.
After that I take it to an autie-friendly arranger/producer who plays it wonderfully and produces a marvellous musical track.
If I write song lyrics its from playing the music over and over and words start joining it, single phrases, usually just one, then the story around that phrase emerges slowly. You can also write a poem and then put it to music, eventually becoming a song. Musical composition is everywhere, its playing in your footsteps, in the fall of leaves, the visual symphony of moving traffic and to see and hear that and grasp that is perhaps the act of so many musicians who never show us a CD but know more of music than many who do.
Sculpture, I generally take a blob of clay and rip pieces off randomly, then I start to see shape and without any thought of what it will be it eventually evolves into something or someone... I let it speak to me, not me trying to force my view on the clay... it is a dialogue with my subconscious and my job is to not try, just be, and let this dialogue happen. It takes poise to let a work be what it will be and not over do it, over direct it and to know when it 'sits ok with you' and not touch it anymore. Also 'perfect' doesn't exist, quirks and individuality are human and are the things that move us, that we relate to, so if 'perfect' is some iconic god-like concept in you let it go. And you can be the sculpture and sculpt each step toward your goals. You can be a statue too and there are some wonderful performing artists who are brilliant at just being STILL!
Public Speaking? This can be through a website, it can be your words through typing up on a screen or noticeboard or in a flyer... there are so many types of public speaking... it can be slides of you just being with no words at all because pictures say a thousand words and some of the best most powerful public presentations use very little words and let a view of someones world speak for itself. An exhibition is a kind of public speaking and you don't even have to be physically there, you can be there through your productions. If you want to SPEAK publicly it is a longer road for some than others and if you have challenges you have to not care about shame or embarrassment or pain. I used to shake, cry, tic, have emotional benders tearing me apart, my hearing painful as blood rushed in my ears and my body so overdosed on adrenaline everything was sharp and electric and painful in my body and I couldn't understand the words I read off my sheet and couldn't understand my own spoken words because my processing had shut down but I felt like I was climbing Everest... who said it was gonna be easy... and I was laughing at my fear, my limitations and saying, I am BIGGER than you, I can do this, I can do anything if I find a creative way to adapt. And afterwards I had awful self injurious impulses and it was hard not to scream and smack myself about but I still didn't care, I was laughing so loud in my soul because I was bigger than all of it.... its an awesome thing and the more I did it the more I knew there was IT and there was ME and I didn'thave to let IT dominate my view of what I could or couldn't dream to do.
So creation is definitely the first step in getting productions 'out there'. In fact, erase all sense of the 'out there', creation is definitely best when done from passion in a dialogue with your inner self.... letting it go, out into the world is LATER and not part of creating at all... that's marketing... and if your work sells itself, you can let people know your stuff exists and if they are moved by it, if they see how it fits their ideals or their business they will get it out there into the public but you can also do your own marketing, your own shopfront through a website and if you get the right people linking to it, you can get a lot of passer's by seeing your 'shop'.
Its normal to produce many rubbish, OK, good but not great things before one jumps out and its like... wow,. if that was an essay it'd probably get an 'A'.
Sometimes you will do this first time, often not and even if you do something outstanding doesn't mean the world will think so and SO WHAT, you are a micro world so if it moved and gripped you, that in fact is also a wonderful, in fact I'd say THE most wonderful thing. If you do happen to find you have done something the world out there finds outstanding, doesn't mean EVERYTHING you do will be like this, some things will, some won't but it's not about THEM, its about you and your relationship to love and passion and madness and pain and.... life. The rest is just a byproduct.
So there you are... there is the starting point of achieving things, the process, at least mine.